Seven Steps to Hurdle Heaven

Step Five: Hurdler as Artist 

“You can’t separate the means that a great man uses to says something from what he ultimately says. Technique is not separated from its content in a great artist.” –Cecil Taylor

Once you’ve graduated from Level Four, once a love for the thing itself has become your greatest motivation for hurdling, you have become a hurdler for life. There’s no turning back, and no desire to. For that reason, many hurdlers don’t move beyond Level Four until after their competitive careers are over. Many hurdlers don’t pass beyond Level Three. They view hurdling as a competition and they like it because they win often. Those who reach Level Four usually do so later in their careers, once they’ve gained the wisdom of perspective. Level Five (and beyond) is often reserved for those who continue on in the sport as coaches, or who are able to transfer the lessons they learned through hurdling into their post-athletic lives.

So if the Level Four hurdler is all about the love, what is the Level Five hurdler all about? Being a voice. Spreading an appreciation for the art of hurdling throughout the land. Being someone the next generation can look up to as a source of inspiration. Through example, through teaching, and through the written word in some cases, the Level Five hurdler communicates what being a Hurdler, emphasis on the capital “H”, truly means. The Level Five hurdler sees beyond his own career, his own goals; he embraces his responsibility to make a difference to the larger community, beyond running fast times, setting records, and earning medals.

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In last month’s installment of Seven Steps to Hurdle Heaven, I pointed out Terry Reese as an example of someone who exhibits a love for hurdling, as demonstrated by the fact that he still trains and does hurdle workouts well into his mid-40’s, well after his competitive prime. That’s the Level Four aspect of Reese. The Level Five aspect lies in the fact that he uploads so many of his workout sessions to YouTube, basically using his  YouTube channel as a free classroom for all hurdlers with questions on their minds. Who’s to say how many hurdlers have successfully fought through hurdling issues after watching one of his videos? That’s the beauty of being a Voice. You’re not doing it for the thank-you’s or the praise, but because you want to help others as you have been helped. You want to pass on what you’ve been given.

Another example would be Ryan Wilson, who coaches other elite athletes – namely Nia Ali – even while he is still competing at the elite level himself. Then there’s David Oliver, who sponsors an indoor high school meet in Greensboro, NC every January. Last year he spent the whole meet walking around talking to coaches and athletes. Then there’s August 2014 profile subject Niklas Rippon, who works full time, trains full time, and still makes time once a week to help coach the hurdlers at his old middle school.

There are countless other examples I’m sure. As a coach, I love it when former athletes of mine come back to help me coach my high school kids, or to train with them. That’s Level Five behavior, when your dedication is to the hurdles, to keeping the event moving forward, not just to excelling personally.

***

Another aspect of the Level Five hurdler, besides being a Voice, is that of being an Artist. By this stage of one’s career, the hurdler has completed all major refinements of technique, and has developed an identifiable style that he can call his own. And this style is virtually flawless; it is one that many hurdlers, even rivals, seek to emulate. Such hurdlers are literally poets in motion; watching them inspires a sense of awe and wonder. Such hurdlers no longer concern themselves with how other hurdlers are training and how other hurdlers hurdle. They know that what they do works, and they have full confidence in their abilities.

Obvious examples of hurdlers who exemplify hurdler-as-artist would include Liu Xiang, Colin Jackson, Allen Johnson, Sally Pearson, and Dawn Harper-Nelson. In the long hurdles there’s Edwin Moses, Kevin Young, Kim Batten. Consistency is an indication of mastery, and these hurdlers were (or are) able to execute breath-taking performances over and over again, race after race, year after year. Plenty of hurdlers may catch glimpses of mastery – for a race, for a string of races, or even for a whole season, but very few are able to sustain it over a lengthier period of time.

At Level Five, the hurdler reaps the rewards for all the studying he did at Level Two, of learning how to be a warrior at Level Three, and of letting go of fear at Level Four. At Level Five, the confidence in oneself is very calm and quiet, unlike the more determined confidence of Level Three. At Level Five, you have nothing to prove.

At Level Five, the hurdler begins to understand that his style is his signature. Running fast and winning isn’t satisfying unto itself anymore. Hurdling has become his way of expressing himself, of letting people know that this is not just something he does, but something he is. I remember thinking often when I was in high school that friends, classmates, and teachers who had never seen me hurdle didn’t really know me. When I was hurdling, that’s when my real personality came out. Not when I was sitting in a classroom taking notes.

A couple weeks ago I was coaching one of my athletes in a one-on-one private session. It was a Sunday, and I always call my mom on Sundays to check in on how she’s doing. She lives in Delaware and I live in North Carolina. So with a busy day ahead of me with no downtime in sight, I decided that the best time to call her would be during practice, since I only had one kid to work with, and I’d been working with this kid for over a year.

But it turned out that this kid, who is commonly susceptible to brain freezes for no apparent reason, was looking awful in his warm-up drills and in his hurdle drills. Arms swinging like helicopter propellers, lead leg knee locking, hips twisting. While on the phone with my mom, I began barking out instructions. “Lead with the knee. Stop kicking your foot out. Bring your heel up, under your hamstring. Don’t you understand how the lead leg and trail leg are related? Don’t you understand by now that if the lead leg kicks out like that, your trail leg can’t drive to the front? Come on! We’ve been over this before. This ain’t nothin’ new…. Okay mom, I’m back.”

The conversation with my mom was interrupted two or three times in this manner. Each time, my mom remarked, “Gee Steve, you really sound like you’re coachin’.” Not until later in the day did it hit me that that was a somewhat odd remark to make. Of course I sounded like I was coaching. I was coaching. But then I realized that my mom had never seen me in my element; she had never seen my coach. She knew me as quiet and shy, soft-spoken. She didn’t know that when in coach mode, another side of my personality comes out.

For me, as someone who doesn’t compete anymore, coaching is the way in which I express myself through the hurdles. So yes, it would make sense that my own mom – the person who brought me into this world and who knows me better than anyone in it – would be unaware of a core aspect of my identity without having seen me coach.

I think that’s the case for any artist, for anyone who has taken on their chosen endeavor with the mindset of an artist. An artist is known by his art. When you look at a Van Gogh painting, you’re looking at Van Gogh. When you hear Nina Simone singing, you’re hearing Nina Simone. When you watch Liu Xiang hurdling, you’re watching Liu Xiang. The artist and the person are one and the same. An artist cannot be separated from his or her chosen art form.

When Rod Milburn was using the double-armed lead back in the ‘70’s, that was a signature element to his style. Liu Xiang exploding into position, with both legs higher than the crossbar, defines his style. Aries Merritt with the wind-up lead arm that chops down, Edwin Moses with the 13-step stride pattern, David Oliver with riding his lead leg down to the track – these athletes found styles that worked for them and didn’t bother with worrying about whether the rest of the world would follow. This is the spirit of the Level Five hurdler. He isn’t rebellious, he isn’t defiant, he isn’t arrogant. He’s just totally confident that his own explorations will lead him to the style to which he is uniquely suited. That freedom from self-consciousness, that freedom of expression, is what enabled Kevin Young, for example, to 12-step the backstretch on his 46.78 race. He knew he could do it, though no one had ever done it before, not even the great Edwin Moses himself. Then he went out and did it.

***

In looking at my own life, I can see that writing articles for this magazine has become another way of expressing myself in a Level Five manner. In terms of being a Voice, my writings are my way of keeping the hurdles at the forefront of people’s consciousness. They’re my way of sharing my knowledge and ideas so that a larger audience can benefit from them. They’re my way of sharing my passion for the hurdles and infusing others with that same passion.

In my world, hurdling and writing are mutually dependent art forms. When I write about hurdling, I’m writing about life, in all its wonder, complexity, and ultimate simplicity. I’m speaking my Truth. A Hurdler’s Truth. I look upon coaching the same way. It’s a continuation of the journey I began as an athlete. The beauty of it all is that you never stop being a hurdler, even when you no longer hurdle. The career dies, but the identity doesn’t.

Legendary jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins said in a recent interview that jazz can never die because “jazz is a spirit. You can’t kill a spirit.” I would make the same statement about hurdling. You don’t stop being a hurdler when you stop hurdling. The hurdles are a spirit, and a spirit never dies.
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